Sidney, Sir Philip (1554‒1586)

Sidney, Sir Philip, poet, and one of the most attractive figures at
Elizabeth's court, born at Penshurst, Kent, the son of Sir Henry Sidney,
lord-deputy of Ireland; quitted Oxford in 1572, and in the manner of the
time finished his education by a period of Continental travel, from which
he returned imbued with the love of Italian literature; took his place at
once in the court of Elizabeth, his uncle, the Earl of Leicester, being
then high in favour, and received rapid promotion, being sent as
ambassador in 1576 to the court of Vienna; nor was his favour with the
queen impaired by his bold “Remonstrance” against her marriage with the
Duke of Anjou, and in 1583 received a knighthood; two years later, “lest
she should lose the jewel of her dominions” the queen forbade him to
accompany Drake to the West Indies, and appointed him governor of
Flushing, but in the following year he received his death-wound at the
battle of Zutphen gallantly leading a troop of Netherlander against the
Spaniards; his fame as an author rests securely on his euphuistic prose
romance “Arcadia,” his critical treatise “The Defence of Poesy,” and
above all on his exquisite sonnet-series “Astrophel and Stella,” in which
he sings the story of his hapless love for Penelope Devereux, who married
Lord Rich; was the friend of Edmund Spenser, and the centre of an
influential literary circle (1554‒1586).